Monthly Archives: December 2009

The estate of jazz legend Chet Baker says these naughty music pirates have stolen $60 billion of music in Canada.

These awful meanies are costing the poor, exploited musician billions of dollars. And the artist’s noble protectors, the major labels need to shut these guys do-…
Wait, what do you mean it’s the major labels doing the piracy?

The class action seeks the option of statutory damages for each infringement. At $20,000 per infringement, potential liability exceeds $60 billion.

These numbers may sound outrageous, yet they are based on the same rules that led the recording industry to claim a single file sharer is liable for millions in damages.

When I make a bed, I have to sleep in it. This case says everything there is to say about the major labels. They may claim to have the protection of the artist’s creative endeavors at heart, but all that matters is making money off the art, not the art itself.

[The idea here reminded me of the title of one of my favorite Godspeed You! Black Emperor “songs.” Hence the title. Worth a listen, too.]
This is Bldgblog doing what they do best, curating a set of ideas and relevant links to make a case – their conclusion is about the “dark maturity” of contemporary urbanism due to “Cities Gone Wild.” Worth a read, and probably worth clicking through the links, as well.

Biological metaphors have been oft used in the discourse of architecture and urbanism – and I think this cuts to the crux of that. In going wild: in exceeding the abilities of the teeming proletariat to break the stranglehold on capital that is exerted by the “overlords,” and in that same resource and commerce hegemony’s inability to fully enslave the proletariat and destroy dissent, the forces shaping our cities fight an ever more feverish battle, and our cities have metastasized.

I am optimistic about our chances, as a species. We’ve adapted to worse. My motive for this comparison is not cynicism. Our cities are not metabolic, our cities are not bone structures. The biological metaphor that most closely describes the current metropolis is – our cities have gone cancerous.